Award/Availability

First Advisor

Keywords

Abstract

Whenever “politics” is brought up, an abundance of definitions and perspectives are sure to follow – all debating just what exactly politics is or is not, and what significance these distinctions carry. These debates have a history as long as humanity itself, attempting to decipher how human beings can live together, but more importantly live well together. It is a normative process in which we all participate. Often these conversations rest on an understanding of politics that emphasizes its role as a conduit for systemic power dynamics. Here politics is linked to abstract frameworks, or institutions, that guide larger impacts – frameworks where global hegemony by ‘super-states’ is maintained, or a system of patriarchal domination of societal norms plays out, for instance. Politics appears to be the very opposite of the everyday; a source of dramatic, formal interruptions of the mundane rhythm of our routine lives. It is this elevation of politics to a rhetorical and theoretical space that is above us, a topdown understanding that renders so many aspects of our lives invisible, apolitical. In doing so, the routine events that we experience everyday leave our realm of critical reflection. This invisibility has significant consequences on the agency of individuals to wield political power, for individuals to collectively and consciously shape and reshape normative judgments. In foregrounding with this, the aim is not to narrow our definition of what is political, but rather expand it to include aspects of our everyday lives that escape critical gaze far too often.

Date of Award

2017

Department

Department of Political Science

University Honors Designation

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the designation University Honors